Pokemon GO is in the middle of enjoying its first ever world-wide version of GO Fest, and trainers are able to do tons of activities and catch very rare Pokemon, including Shadow Mewtwo. But just because the festivities end today at 8 EST/10 PST, doesn’t mean there’s not more in store for later this year. In fact it sounds like some exciting changes will be coming to the game, according to the game’s Product Lead, Matt Slemon.
The level-cap for trainers in Pokemon GO has been level 40 since the game’s launch in the summer of 2016. Level 40 is not easy to get to by any means, which is why it hasn’t changed in the past several years. In order to reach level 40, trainers have to play a lot, making liberal use of Lucky Eggs and combining them with other XP multipliers, like the ones that were active yesterday. But by now most long-term players have met the level cap, and it seems like it may finally be time for Niantic to raise it.
In a new interview with Pokemon GO’s Product Lead Matt Slemon, which Niantic shared online, Slemon admitted that it may almost be time. When speaking about the level cap, Slemon had this to say:
“This has been something that’s been in discussion for a very long time. The right way to do a level cap increase has been a topic of much debate internally. For us the most important piece that we wanted to land was, we don’t want the level cap to increase and then all of a sudden people just sort of get set to their new level and that’s sort of the end of it. We do want the experience to feel a little bit different past level 40 than it has felt up to level 40. So fundamentally getting a level 41 and beyond is still going to require effort. That’s really what levels are intended to display – is how much effort you put into the game. And so that effort economy is still very important to us. But it’s not going to be as simple as grinding XP through the ways that you might be used to. So the experience should be a little bit different, and we’re excited to announce more of that later this year.”
The idea that leveling up past level 40 might require doing something new should be exciting news for players who feel like they’ve seen and done it all. Slemon ended the interview by saying, “There’s a lot of cool stuff that we’re planning to do later this year. There’s many more features, there’ll be more Pokemon, there’ll be more events. We’re really excited to bring a lot of these new things out to players, and we hope you’ll enjoy the experience.”
And indeed there will be more. The following three weeks will be full of rare Pokemon to catch as part of the Ultra Unlock bonus that players as a community earned by completing tasks during GO Fest.
For those who still need to complete some of the special research tasks today, including unlocking the opportunity to catch the victory Pokemon Victini, trainers have until 8 PM EST or 10 PM PST to take advantage of the increased spawns that make it much easier than it will be later to do so.
Pokemon GO is available now for iOS and Android mobile devices.